Home (Is Wherever I'm With You)
by StrangePhenomenon
Summary: Kevin is a sarcastic little shit, Sam always gets stuck with the dishes, and Dean doesn't even miss Cas that much, okay? Crowley's still in the back room, probably thinking about life and stuff. Rated M for language.


What's hidden behind Dean's gruff exterior is not, as many people think, a sweet, sensitive guy. Sure, Dean can be and often is both of those things in his own special Dean way, but they're not really _hidden_. They're just not in plain sight.

(Yes, there's a difference, fuck you.)

The part of himself Dean hides like a dirty secret is this: he is a _huge fucking nerd_. The hugest of all the nerds. Sam honestly does not know how he didn't notice it before. Well, okay that's a lie. Dean's transparent enjoyment of LARPing had kind of clued Sam in.

But _still_.

Sam has decided to blame Kevin. Sam blames Kevin for a lot of things, mostly the continuous movie and TV show marathons. Also for being a sassy little shit.

Sam walks into the living room, or more accurately the TV room, since its defining features are a huge-ass TV and an exceedingly comfortable couch. He's decidedly unsurprised to see Dean and Kevin on the 3rd season of Battlestar Galactica.

"Hey guys," Sam says, flopping onto the couch between them. Some shows they've watched enough that even same, who actually does _productive_ things, has seen every episode more than once.

"Man, _fuck_ Baltar," Dean declares. Then, "Goddammit, Sam, would you leave some room for us?"

"Please, like you would do any better with a gun to your head," Sam says, not moving.

"Hopefully I wouldn't have been stupid enough to give away _vital information_, this causing _all of this_."

"It's almost like he's a _flawed character_," Kevin says from his corner of the couch.

Sam laughs. "See, Kevin supports me, you are wrong."

"Kevin's support proves nothing," Dean says.

Sam stretches. "Whatever, bro. Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better."

"I'm not – Jesus, how are you taking up this much _space_, you yeti?"

"Just talented, I guess."

"Well, move _over_."

"I don't wanna."

"Really? _Really?" _Dean shoves at him ineffectually, but he's laughing. "God, I yearn for the days when you were the size of a normal human."

"I am normal-sized. You two are just – little."

"_Little?_ I'll show you little, you – _what?_"

Kevin is laughing, shoulders shaking. "Oh, nothing," he manages, waving a hand. "Just that you two are ridiculous. Ignore me."

"You know, Kevin, words can hurt," Sam says mournfully, before tipping onto his side and dropping his feet on top of Kevin.

"What," Kevin asks, "did I ever do to deserve this?"

Sam yawns, pillowing his head on Dean's leg, and lets his eyes fall shut. "I'm sure there's a reason."

Dean makes some kind of _what do I look like to you, a pillow?_ comment, but he sounds amused, so Sam decides to drift off to sleep rather than answer.

"Sam."

"Mnn."

"_Sam_."

Sam pries his eyes open. It's significantly darker than before, but Battlestar Galactica is still playing. He lifts his head, gently – Dean's asleep.

"What's up?" he says, voice rough.

"Sorry to wake you, I just really have to pee."

Same stares at him, not fully understanding how this information relates to him.

"Move your legs," Kevin clarifies.

"Shit, sorry," Sam pulls his legs off Kevin and sits up, careful to not jostle Dean awake.

"Thanks." Kevin disappears to the bathroom.

After a moment to fully regain consciousness, Sam stands up and stretches, his back cracking, then grabs the remote and turns down the volume so if stuff starts blowing up, it won't wake Dean. Dean is curled in on himself the way he does when he gets cold while asleep. Sam grabs a blanket and drapes it gently over his brother. After a moment, Dean makes a happy sound and stretches out.

"'sat you, Sam?" he asks, not sounding fully awake.

"Yeah, it's me. Go back to sleep."

"Mmm," Dean agrees, settling further into the couch. Sam smiles at him, then heads to the kitchen to maybe dig up some food.

"Dean."

"Hasswnnnwhasshappenin?"

Sam watches in amusement as Dean flounders towards consciousness. Once awake, he doesn't even sit up, just gives Sam a look from his prone pose on the couch.

"What," Dean says. "What do you want from me."

"Cas is on the phone," Sam says, tossing his cell phone to Dean – or really, onto Dean. Dean makes an aggravated sound and pushes himself up, grabbing the phone when it threatens to slide off his back and onto the floor. "Cas?"

Sam leaves him to his conversation, heading back to the kitchen. He grabs the dishes from the delicious, if horribly unhealthy, sandwich he made, and puts them in the sink, which is full. Sam sighs, giving the sinkful of dishes a long look, and then just gives in and grabs a sponge.

Dean made the rule that, since he makes the food, he doesn't have to do the dishes. Sam is fine with this, since Dean is amazing at cooking. It would be nice if Kevin _ever did them_, though. Sam _always_ gets stuck with them because Kevin is mysteriously never present when something needs to be done, and it's not like they can make Crowley do household chores.

Well, they probably could. But Crowley would be passive-aggressive and whiny and also _evil_ and would probably poison their food.

Dean comes into the kitchen, hair somehow tousled even though it's like, half an inch long or something, and tosses Sam's phone at his head. Which Sam totally _would have caught_ if he hadn't been doing the dishes since he's apparently the only responsible person in the house. As it is, he just sees something hurtling at his face and smacks it away, sending it directly into the sink full of soapy water.

Sam turns to glare at Dean. Dean fails to look anything other than entirely amused. Sam gently fishes his phone out of the water and sets it on the counter to die in peace. "You realize I know where you sleep, right?"

"That would probably be worrying if you had ever actually been able to sneak up on me. Ever."

"I will find a way," Sam promises, glowering, and grabs another dish.

"Don't give me the puppy dog act, bro. You've got like 5 phones anyway."

"_Not _the point. And what puppy dog act? What does that even mean?"

"That thing you're doing with your face."

"This is an _angry _face."

Dean raises an eyebrow – damn him – and Sam makes his glare icy.

"Now it looks like you're gonna cry."

Sam huffs out an irritated breath. "Don't you have something else to do than annoy me?"

Dean grins at him. "But – quality time with my little bro!"

Sam decides to ignore Dean, and hopefully he will just stop being annoying of his own accord. Unlikely, but Sam lives in hope.

"So what'd Cas have to say?" he asks, beginning to scrub the last thing in the sink, a pan caked with who-knows-what.

Dean hops up onto the counter. "Well, he's getting closer. Not by much – still getting used to traveling the human way – but he should be here in like 5, 6 days."

Sam rinses out the pan and balances it in the dish rack. Done, he shuts off the water, and Kevin chooses this _exact moment_ to come into the kitchen.

Magical prophet powers, it must be.

Same shoots him a glare. Kevin looks not at all intimidated.

"Dean, did you ask him if he just wants us to come pick him up?"

"I did. He said something like _as I now must live in this world, should I not become accustomed to it?_"

Sam smirks at Dean's Cas impression. "Sounds like him. Well, I haven't been able to find anything worth looking into in our area. Catan?"

Sam doesn't care what anyone says; Settlers of Catan is a brutal, brutal game.

How it works is this: You build settlements and roads. The resources you get depend on which ones your settlements border on, but you only get them when their specific number is rolled on the dice. You use resources to buy more settlements and development cards, both of which give you varying numbers of victory points. First person to 10 victory points wins.

It's a three-way tie at 9 victory points. Dean is cheating, of course.

He doesn't even bother to be _subtle_ about it. He just casually steals a wheat resource card, and pretends that no one could possibly have noticed. Which he should know won't work, because Sam _always_ calls him on it.

"_Dean_."

"Problem, Sammy?"

"Put it back."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Sam glares, very, very hard at him. "Shut up, Dean, you're not even trying to _hide _that you're cheating."

"Bambi eyes are not going to work on me, Sammy."

Sam thinks very hard about why murdering Dean would be bad. Then he says through his teeth, "I am not giving you _Bambi eyes_."

"Well, you look like a distressed baby deer, so I'd say 'Bambi eyes' is pretty accurate."

Kevin makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like a stifled laugh. Sam is surrounded by terrible people.

"What did I ever do to deserve this, I am a good person and I should not have to deal with you people."

"Whatever you say," Dean says, nonchalantly taking a card from the wood pile.

Kevin is actually laughing now, and Sam gives him a betrayed look. Kevin clears his throat and says, with barely suppressed mirth, "Well, sorry losers, but I'm gonna upgrade my last settlement and get one victory point, so it looks like – "

Dean gently tips the board off the table.

"Oops," he says, failing entirely to look innocent despite the fact that he basically _lies for a living._ "Guess we're done."

"You can't just do that whenever you don't win!" Sam complains.

"I make the food, I get to – "

"That does _not_ work for everything," Sam interrupts.

"Also, I was going to win anyway," Dean continues, displaying his remarkable ability to defy the existence of reality.

Kevin gives Dean a _look_. Dean starts laughing, and Sam gently rests his head on the table.

It was decided a while ago that when Dean is ridiculous and knocks board games onto the floor because he's a _five year old_, he has to clean it up. However, Dean cares about messes not at all, and Sam and Kevin only care a little bit. So for now, they leave it where it is. Later, Sam or Kevin will probably hide it in Dean's bed or in the fridge, the only two places that guarantee that he'll actually clean it up.

They all head back into the TV room, where Battlestar is still playing. Dead likes to leave things on continuous play on Netflix, and just sort of wander in and out of the room as the fancy strikes him. It bothered Sam at first, but he's grown to like it too, the informality of it. No one has to get shepherded into a movie night or anything; they just come and go when they want. Which is good, because none of them take well to being shepherded.

And, yes, they have Netflix. No, Sam doesn't know what his life is anymore.

Sam's growing to like the bunker more and more every day, seeing Dean relax and calm, seeing Kevin emerge from his stunned shell to be the sarcastic little shit he actually is. It's new enough to be amazing. It'll probably get annoying soon.

God, Sam hopes this goes on long enough for it to get annoying.

Though, there's also the King of Hell tied up in the back room, so. There's that.

Sam's phone – a backup he doesn't particularly like – rings, and he digs it out of his pocket.

"Dude, leave the room if you're gonna talk on the phone," Dean says, eyes glued to the screen.

Sam makes his way into the hallway. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Sam?" a brisk woman's voice asks, not a voice he knows.

"Speaking, who is this?"

"Dr. Ochoa at Phillips County Hospital. A driver saw a man collapsed by the side of the highway and called us. He's not awake yet, so I just called the last number on his phone. Don't know his name, but he's got dark hair, real handsome, some scruff?"

Sam swallows. "Yeah, I know him. Is he okay? Why'd he collapse?"

"Dehydration and exhaustion, as far as we can tell. Looks like he'd been walking for a while, trying to get someone to pick him up. We've kept him here a few hours and given him fluids, so he should be fine. But we can't keep him overnight, so it'd be great if you could come in and pick him up."

"Yeah, yeah, I definitely can," Sam says immediately. "What's your address?"

He writes down the information, then heads back into the TV room.

"Dean."

Dean sees his face and pauses the show. "What's up?"

"Cas was found collapsed from dehydration and exhaustion." Sam holds up a hand as Dean stands, brow furrowed. "He's okay, they're discharging him, but we need to go get him."

"Yeah," Dean says, running a hand through his hair distractedly. "Yeah. Uh, where is he?"

"Phillips County Hospital."

"Phillips – that's like, an hour west of here, tops."

"More like 40 minutes," Sam says.

"He said he was 5 days out at the least."

Sam shrugs. "Who knows. Maybe he was confused?"

"I guess," Dean says. "Kevin, you stay here, hold down the fort, alright?"

Kevin nods, eyes huge. He's still not up to leaving the bunker, and they all know it. With them gone, he'll be on edge even in the bunker – leaving it is out of the question for now.

They drive to the hospital in silence, Dean's fingers fidgeting nervously on the steering wheel. Sam wants to say something like _hey, don't worry, the doctor says he's fine_ but knows that'll just earn him a sharp, "Who asked you?"

Dean can be so _transparent_.

They arrive and Sam asks at the front desk for Dr. Ochoa. The chipper nurse smiles at him.

"Sure thing, I'll page her."

Sam does not like chipper nurses.

"You Sam?" He turns to see a dark-skinned woman in a lab coat.

"I am."

"Hi, I'm Dr. Ochoa. Your friend is right this way." She leads them up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, stopping outside one of the rooms. "He should be fine now, just make sure he gets plenty of rest and food. Oh, and I've got a few forms for you to sign."

"Okay, sounds good," Sam says.

"I'll go get those and you can go talk to him," Dr. Ochoa says.

She walks off and they head into the room. It's a double, but only one bed is occupied. Cas is staring at the ceiling; Dean sees him and doesn't _smile_ exactly, but the worry and strain lifting off his face makes him look about a thousand times happier.

"Hey," Dean says, approaching Castiel. "You okay?"

Castiel gives Dean one of those stares that Sam feels dirty witnessing. "I am well," he says, quietly. Feeling intrusive, Sam turns away just as the doctor comes back with the forms, and gladly takes the excuse to give Dean and Cas some time. He skims them, then signs an alias at the bottom of each, and hands them back to the doctor.

"Thanks," she says, "and you guys can head out whenever you're ready."

"Thanks for everything, doctor," Sam says, then walks over to Dean and Cas. "We're good to go. Cas, you have clothes, right?"

"I believe they are in that drawer."

Dean fishes them out, and Castiel disappears briefly to put them on. He looks different than Sam remembers, almost shockingly so. He's thin and pale, and his clothes are dirty and ripped (and, for that matter, not a trench coat and suit). More than that, he's missing that sense of pure, raw power, that sense of other. Even his movements seem more fluid, more – well. More human.

They walk to the car, Sam and Dean sandwiching Cas protectively. Sam gives Cas shotgun, just 'cause he's great like that. Castiel is soon asleep, though, head pillowed against the window. Dean keeps giving him these warm, fond glances, and Sam wonders if he's even aware that he's doing it.

Sam remembers that they don't have anywhere ready for Cas to sleep, and shoot Kevin a text asking him to make up a bed in one of the empty rooms. His phone buzzes soon after.

_not ur fuckin maid, Winchester_

Sam suppresses a laugh. _Pleaaaasee? _he sends back.

_fine u brat_

_I don't have to take that from you, you're like 12_

_shut up yeti_

Sarcastic little shit.

They get back to the bunker fairly quickly. Cas is still dozing against the window.

"Cas," Dean says, "Wake up, we're here."

Cas makes a discontented grumbling sounds, but sits up and rubs his eyes.

Dean smiles. "Yeah, yeah, I know, but you can go back to sleep in an actual bed now. C'mon."

He leads Cas into the house and Sam follows. While Dean takes Cas upstairs, Sam slumps onto the couch next to Kevin.

"He okay?" Kevin asks.

"Think so," Sam says. "Just needs some rest and food."

"What do you wanna bet Dean brings him breakfast in bed?"

"I'm not gonna bet against a sure thing."


End file.
